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Should we stay or should we go? We are a family living in the wonderful bay area. I work in tech and currently make in the $250k-$300k range (this is not some dumb humblebrag, you're all strangers on the internet, why would I care?). It is a boatload of money, but somehow it is still difficult to provide a decent home in a good school district that is not a 1.5 hour commute each way. We currently have one child but have #2 on the way and are planning to aim for three by the time we're done. Looking at homes on the peninsula anything in the 4br range is going to be $1.5M to be in an even average school district. Also that home is going to be outdated and not much bigger than 1500 sqft. My wife is from the mid-west and has family in Minneapolis and Madison so we've naturally began discussing if a move back is right for us. We are torn what to do and I wanted get input from the goons. Reasons to stay, in order of priority: 1) Job opportunities - long term. While I can move and find another good job, I'm deeply concerned about the long-term prospects of moving. I get recruited on a daily basis out here. I doubt there will be much upward movement in the midwest. 2) Job opportunities - short term. I'll need to take a pay cut, which isn't the end of the world, but while some things are cheaper (houses) a lot else don't change in price (cars, groceries). 3) Things to do - skiing, beach, national parks 4) Weather - enough said 5) Support the progressiveness of California. Reason to leave, in order: 1) Closer to her family, (e.g. within a few hours) 2) Affordable housing with space for five 3) Good schools in many areas - don't need to pay a fortune or go private 4) Midwestern people seem friendlier and communities have a more neighborhood feel (based off my experience in Silicon Valley). Thoughts? Any major things I'm missing? Help me goons!
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Apr 24, 2017 23:58
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In b4 Jastiger recommends Des Moines. But seriously, Sioux Falls has a lot of tech companies moving in, and outside of the assfuck cold winters, is a great place to live with three great school districts (sioux falls proper, harrisburg, and brandon valley) and three "good, but not amazing" school districts nearby (Tea, Tri-Valley, and Lennox). So even if you don't want to live in Sioux Falls proper, you can still live in the outlying areas and make a bunch of money and having a nicer work-life balance than i'm sure you have. Downsides are assfuck cold, not nearly as much in terms of "culture" (no, tater tot hotdish is not an "ethnic" food...the only real ethnic food out here is ethiopian, one mediocre indian place, a pretty decent thai place, one good chineese place, and a lot of americanized "ethnic" food.), we're starting to get some more big ticket stuff, but it's not like it's the bay area. But, positive - jobs. And you can get a huge 5+ bedroom mcmansion for sub $1mil if that floats your boat, or just an average sized split level in the $200k range. The only reason we're moving out of state is because the cold is loving with my husband's back. And it gets COLD. Like <-10 for days at a time, and it's WINDY. There is no amount of layers that can stop a 40mph wind in the middle of winter. They can help, but it's still bitterly cold. And there is a lot of upward mobility, especially if you attach yourself to either of the major hospital systems out here, or one of the banks. Pretty much Citi, Wells Fargo, and Capitol One all have their major call centers out here for US based customer support, so you can get a great gig as a DBA or IT, or WebDev or whatever your speciality is with room to move up with the banks or the hopsital system and have lots of room to grow. I've heard Minneapolis is really nice - and has a lot of jobs, and a lot more culture. I don't know how close you want to be to her family, but the cities actually has a *lot* going on.
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Apr 25, 2017 00:17
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I can't speak to job opportunities but if you think you're gonna miss that sweet sweet Cali life then pick a city with a Big Ten school and move there. Having lived in two (Ann Arbor, Bloomington) and spent a summer in a third (Evanston), they're cool and I think one would be less of a step down from Bay Area life than you're expecting. If you want a tech job in the Midwest they're probably as good of places as any to start looking, and they generally have good-to-great school districts too. If you want to stay near a big city then obviously Chicago is right there too.
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Apr 25, 2017 02:42
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Just move to Denver like all the other tech people. It is only slightly more affordable. Michigan is wonderful and not rear end cold since the lake protects you from the really cold temps (unless it freezes). Ann Arbor is cool and I bet you could do alright there. Minnesota and Wisconsin are cool but kinda of meh most of the year.
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Apr 25, 2017 04:46
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C-Euro posted:I can't speak to job opportunities but if you think you're gonna miss that sweet sweet Cali life then pick a city with a Big Ten school and move there. Having lived in two (Ann Arbor, Bloomington) and spent a summer in a third (Evanston), they're cool and I think one would be less of a step down from Bay Area life than you're expecting. If you want a tech job in the Midwest they're probably as good of places as any to start looking, and they generally have good-to-great school districts too. Seconding the Big Ten college town recommendation. I haven't been to all of them (and I'm not counting Rutgers and Maryland  ) but I've loved living in a couple of them. I just moved to an amazing 1930s house (paid <$240,000, would cost over a million in Berkeley) and have a <10 minute bike ride to work in a cool downtown. You couldn't pay me enough to live in a high cost of living area, especially if I had to take on a car commute. In a Midwest college town you can save an absurd amount of your income and still enjoy a fun downtown, good housing, etc.
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Apr 25, 2017 04:57
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I've never lived in the Bay Area, but the company I work for was HQ'd out of there for a while so many of my coworkers are in a similar boat. My thoughts: Job opportunities: If you're making that kind of coin, you're obviously pretty good at what you do. Employers seem very open to telecommuting these days. We just had a high level IT person move somewhere there's no company office so he could be close to family. He was going to resign but management wanted to keep him on staff so he works from home and visits HQ a couple times a year for a week or so. I don't know what kind of role you have, but with the global workforce, video conferencing, instant messaging and even travel many positions don't need to be in the office anymore. We actually try to hire outside of our expensive COL areas for many positions. Sometimes it's hard to do, but it can be a win/win for the company and the employee. For example we have an office in Lawrence, Kansas, not exactly a tech hub, but the software engineers there get great paying jobs that allow them to live where they want to, and in return we get employees that tend to stick around for a really long time. Just because you live somewhere, doesn't mean you job has to be there, just something to think about. (On a side note I see this with a lot of tech companies. Silicon Valley started expanding into Austin, because it was less expensive to hire folks there, and the candidates they were looking for wanted to live in Austin. Now you're seeing it with Denver as well. Tech is expanding to a lot of places. SV will still be the hot cutting edge area for the foreseeable future, but tech opportunities are all over now. Houston, Dallas, Atlanta all great places for tech.) Things to do: There are cool things to do everywhere. Maybe you become snowboard bums instead of beach bums, but I've lived a lot of places and if you're bored it's probably your own fault. Except Topeka, gently caress Topeka. Weather: gently caress the cold, I can't deal with it. If you can, good for you. I stick to the southern states when it comes to climate. Kansas is as far North as I've ever been and I'd like to keep it that way. I've lived a lot of places, and I like the Gulf Coast states the best. Any area you're probably considering is probably somewhat progressive on a local level, I wouldn't worry about politics too much. It can be frustrating though. Family: This one is huge. We don't live close to family and it sucks when it comes to raising kids. We have ZERO support system. I get pretty jealous of other family members that live close to each other, and when their kid gets sick Granny comes over to watch the kid so they can go to work, or my wife's cousins who just took a 7 day cruise and Gran and Pop Pop came and stayed at the house for the week with the kids. It's all us 24/7/365 and has been for the last 7 years since my oldest was born. If my wife and I could make anywhere close to the money we make now we would move and be closer to them. I don't know how old your kids are, but I have a 7 and 5 year old and I would kill for just a weekend away with my wife, just the 2 of us. I love my kids more than anything, but sometimes you need a little break. It's good for the adult, and the kids. Housing, schools, community, not much to say about these you don't already know. Finances will probably be a lot more advantageous as well. Think of how much you could save for the kid's college, or the family vacations you can take, or whatever else a larger amount of disposable income will give you? My wife and I live in San Antonio and gross like half what you do and the cost of living here lets us live very comfortably.
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Apr 25, 2017 07:27
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spwrozek posted:Michigan is wonderful and not rear end cold since the lake protects you from the really cold temps (unless it freezes). Ann Arbor is cool and I bet you could do alright there. Minnesota and Wisconsin are cool but kinda of meh most of the year. Yeah full disclosure I grew up in Ann Arbor, and while I'm glad I left after HS to see more of the country I would loving love an excuse to move back there or to that area. The job opportunities aren't there for my wife and me (yet). If your family is in WI and MN though, MI might be a little too far from them. Telecommuting is also a good thing to consider. Another couple that we know here is moving to another state and both of them are starting jobs with a high amount of work-from-home time included. My wife's about to start a new job where some working from home is possible too. Hell, I have a side job doing editorial work for a company is loving India of all places despite living in the eastern US. The tech is already there for a lot of industries and is getting there for others, if your move is motivated by family and not dissatisfaction with your job definitely tell your employer that you're thinking about moving and see if you can work something out to stay on with them remotely. C-Euro fucked around with this message at 23:43 on Apr 25, 2017 |
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Apr 25, 2017 16:57
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Minneapolis sucks and so do all the people there. This is coming from someone who grew up in and subsequently left the Midwest, so I'm biased. But really don't move there.
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Apr 25, 2017 20:37
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My fiance and I moved to Columbus, OH from Boston for her postdoc. I was dreading the move initially because of typical east coast big city snobbery about the midwest, but have come to find that Columbus is actually very cool. There are very few things that I could do in Boston that are unavailable in Columbus and it's comical how much lower the cost of living is. I've also found that the people who are most dismissive of the idea of moving to the midwest have never even been there and have no idea what it's actually like (myself included). My only real gripe is the lack of public transit.
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Apr 25, 2017 21:50
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I would LOUDLY lobby for you to do this. You have literally no idea how much being a high earner in the Midwest is playing life on easy mode. I don't mean this in a lovely way, it's just easier. I'm vastly happier living here than in the "cultured" cities of the East. I would also agitate for Big 10 College towns, as I think they are some of the greatest places on Earth (especially AA, Madison, IC and U/C, less so Chicago and Minny but those cities are fun for other reasons, gently caress Nebraska). Downsides are you have to own and operate a car for each adult in the house (sorry, no take-backs), you're probably better off buying than renting and the high-life is going to lose some of its shine (no Michelin stars west of Chicago) but in exchange you can 1) own an unbelievably beautiful home for less than 3x annual salary 2) have a < 15 minute commute to work 3) pay 40% less for cost of living expenses (and probably more depending on the line-item) 4) leave your doors unlocked 5) have the neighborhood watch your kids as they run around on bikes and poo poo until dark 6) grill out on the back deck 7) pay less taxes 8) send your kids to some of the best public schools in the country It's magic. EAT FASTER!!!!!! fucked around with this message at 22:22 on Apr 25, 2017 |
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Apr 25, 2017 22:18
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There will be much more racism to deal with. Plus you already mentioned, Trump voters outnumber you 2 to 1.
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Apr 26, 2017 15:54
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Elephanthead posted:There will be much more racism to deal with. Plus you already mentioned, Trump voters outnumber you 2 to 1. This really isn't true if you're living in a Big 10 college town or most midwestern cities. Yes there are a non-zero number of Trump supporters (unlike the Bay Area) but any urban area is going to skew heavily liberal like anywhere else.
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Apr 26, 2017 16:42
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how the gently caress can you not live comfortably in sf on 300k a year post a breakdown of your monthly budget/expenditures, would be curious to see where the gently caress all your money is going app posted:Looking at homes on the peninsula anything in the 4br range is going to be $1.5M to be in an even average school district. Also that home is going to be outdated and not much bigger than 1500 sqft. you don't need a 4 bedroom house for 5 people, you're just choosing to make this a requirement there was a point in recent american history where larger families lived in even smaller spaces if you could imagine that!
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Apr 26, 2017 17:10
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also you're the embodiment of this wsj illustration and you'll be the first in the guillotines in the upcoming revolution
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Apr 26, 2017 17:11
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mishaq posted:how the gently caress can you not live comfortably in sf on 300k a year Perhaps you could shut the gently caress up and realize that some people may value certain aspects of their living situation more or less than you?
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Apr 26, 2017 18:45
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No Butt Stuff posted:Perhaps you could shut the gently caress up and realize that some people may value certain aspects of their living situation more or less than you? yes we should definitely feel for the man that makes more money than 98% of the world's population and 6 times the median household income in the us who can't manage to live comfortably in san francisco sending kids...to public schools, with those people in order to live a reasonable distance away from work in a 58 square mile city built on a narrow peninsula? you mean i can't live in a 5000 square foot ballon frame drywall shitbox in the middle of a real city? where will i put my juciero in such a small kitchen?
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Apr 26, 2017 19:07
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Can you imagine being so bad with money that you can't live comfortably on 300k a year?
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Apr 26, 2017 19:11
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Haha, didn't take long for the multi-posting angry shitbag to show up
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Apr 26, 2017 19:23
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greasyhands posted:Haha, didn't take long for the multi-posting angry shitbag to show up Oh weird, he must not make enough money for his posts to show up in my Something Awful Premium Forums Experience?
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Apr 26, 2017 19:43
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Can't you make 300k in the bay area after like 8 months of writing lovely javascript? There have been multiple junior level developers I've fired for shoddy/slow work who then couldn't find another good job immediately in Colorado, but moved and have done that in the bay area, so they're probably not all humblebragging geniuses. *edit lol uber's starting engineer salary is 200k. Goddamn that must be one lovely hot assembly line. Pryor on Fire fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Apr 26, 2017 |
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Apr 26, 2017 22:20
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Minneapolis has a great airport close to the city with a lot of cheap flights to warm places so it has that going for it.
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Apr 26, 2017 22:44
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I lived in a suburb of Minneapolis for around a year. It was okay, the Twin Cities are pretty neat and it was a shitload cheaper than staying in the bay area. I moved away cause it was too flat so if you like mountains and stuff don't live there
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Apr 27, 2017 02:35
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It is cold as hell in the Midwest OP. Seriously. It snows all the drat time and builds up on the ground. Even if you pay someone to shovel which you absolutely should, you're still gonna have to deal with it. Also, sometimes it hurts to breathe. Why would you live in a place where it hurts to breathe? Oh great so you can ski all the time right? Nope. No mountains anywhere. Lived in the midwest (Ann Arbor) for a while. Lived in the bay area for a while. So many more things to do. So many more things to eat. Other than Chicago, there aren't really any good restaurants and even Chicago is nothing compared to SF/Yountville/etc. The variety of ethnic food is also much worse. Want pho? Okay sure. You have like 2 choices in your neighborhood instead of 20. Housing is much cheaper than in the bay for sure. So are utilities and gas. But I didn't notice much of a difference in groceries or anything else. Everything costs the same amount of money on Amazon. I also never encountered overt racism (like people shouting racist stuff at you) until moving to the midwest. Whether you care about this or not is up to you. It wasn't a huge deal to me, but your mileage and coloring may differ. To each their own, but I would (and have) taken a 50% pay cut to live in the bay area.
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Apr 28, 2017 22:08
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Yeah I would probably kill myself if I didn't live next to 15 pho places, minimum
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Apr 29, 2017 01:24
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I grew up/went to school on the east coast, spent a few summers in the Bay Area working in tech, and have spent the last 5 years living in one of the liberal Big 10 Midwest college towns you mentioned. I'm moving back to the east coast for a job, but that's partly driven by the fact that my girlfriend and I don't have a family yet. I used to be fairly snobby about flyover country etc, but after spending the past 5 years living here I've realized that it's a fantastic place to live and raise a family. EAT FASTER!!!!!! posted:You have literally no idea how much being a high earner in the Midwest is playing life on easy mode. This is the best way to put it. Life in a liberal, Midwest college town on a decent income is pretty fantastic. You'll be able to live in a desirable neighborhood. Your commute won't be tragic. You'll have easy access to parks/nature/easy activities for your family. Sure, you're going to miss out on going to the newest exhibit at the Met on the weekend, but with the extra money you'll be able to afford to fly to New York and pay for scalped tickets to see Hamilton if you want to. Having a decent income means that you're mobile and where you live matters significantly less.
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Apr 29, 2017 04:24
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potatoducks posted:It is cold as hell in the Midwest OP. Seriously. It snows all the drat time and builds up on the ground. Even if you pay someone to shovel which you absolutely should, you're still gonna have to deal with it. Also, sometimes it hurts to breathe. Why would you live in a place where it hurts to breathe? Oh great so you can ski all the time right? Nope. No mountains anywhere. This is absolutely true. I lived in Nebraska for a few years and until then I didn't realize it was possible for it to be painful just to exist outside. There were a few times I parked my car at work and saw that the outside temp was -10 or below with even colder windchills and legitimately considered calling out and going home back to my warm bed instead of having to walk across the parking lot. You do get used to it but the first winter is horrible. potatoducks posted:Lived in the midwest (Ann Arbor) for a while. Lived in the bay area for a while. So many more things to do. So many more things to eat. Other than Chicago, there aren't really any good restaurants and even Chicago is nothing compared to SF/Yountville/etc. The variety of ethnic food is also much worse. Want pho? Okay sure. You have like 2 choices in your neighborhood instead of 20. Housing is much cheaper than in the bay for sure. So are utilities and gas. But I didn't notice much of a difference in groceries or anything else. Everything costs the same amount of money on Amazon. Any "ethnic food" in the midwest is going to be white people's approximations of what that culture's food is, or modified to suit the midwestern white people palate. You will not find any spicy food (pepperoni is considered "spicy" by some folks out that way).
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Apr 29, 2017 04:56
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Like others have said Minneapolis and Chicago are legit, and places like Ann Arbor and Madison can be fun too but maybe you should take a week long trip to the upper midwest in the middle of winter so you know what you're getting into. Also gently caress anyone who tells you to move to Iowa or a Dakota. quote:Any "ethnic food" in the midwest is going to be white people's approximations of what that culture's food is, or modified to suit the midwestern white people palate. You will not find any spicy food (pepperoni is considered "spicy" by some folks out that way). This is absolutely false. If you live outside a major city then yeah you'll be surrounded by people who think ketchup is "spicy", but any major city in the midwest will have legit restaurants based around their immigrant population.
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Apr 29, 2017 06:11
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The best beer states are in the middle of the country 
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Apr 29, 2017 16:50
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A GIANT PARSNIP posted:Also gently caress anyone who tells you to move to Iowa or a Dakota. Don't lump us in with them, we're cultured, damnit.
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Apr 29, 2017 20:46
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A GIANT PARSNIP posted:you'll be surrounded by people who think ketchup is "spicy" Oh my God I thought I was the only person who experienced this. When I lived outside of Chicago I had a co-worker who was from Iowa who thought ketchup was spicy, which was a completely insane concept to me considering I had been seeing a woman from Thailand for six or seven years at that point 
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Apr 30, 2017 05:36
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pig slut lisa posted:The best beer states are in the middle of the country U best not be steppin to the VT bitch Ask me in 12 months, I'm moving from the Hub to Ann Arbor in three months.
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Apr 30, 2017 16:01
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Minneapolis is great, come ask questions in the Minneapolis thread if you want to ask residents about the city. As people have said though the weather is interesting, we had snow last week but now it is in the 60s (we call this warm) and we have very much emerged from hibernation.
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May 7, 2017 22:04
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Chicago is awesome. Come here and bitch about the weather with us. We also have a sandy beach around a lake that you can use 3 weeks out of the year!
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May 7, 2017 23:46
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I was born in the Bay Area (South City) and live in Austin. Austin is awesome, been here 15 years. However like a lot of Austinite transplants I am a Bad Texan because I only really like the Austin area, the rest of the state can suck it. My wife is from San Antonio and that is about the only other city I can stand to visit. Pros: Sure as poo poo cheaper than where you are, across the board, though you may find you won't get the same salary for the same kind of job (there is a reason Silicon Valley outsources here). If you can come close to 300k though you will live like a king. Fair number of Cowboy hippies. Not what I'd call Bay area flower children by a long shot but similar aesthetics. Awesome food (and not just tex-mex, poo poo I don't even consider Austin a hotbed for that anyway). Good schools if you move to the right area. Real estate is super important to research here because Texas has no state income tax, which means schools are funded by property taxes alone, which means the better the neighborhood the better the schools (usually). Property taxes are high though not nearly as high as property taxes + income taxes where you live. Note the school situation is generally true in a lot of states since so much funding comes from property taxes everywhere, but it is especially pronounced here. A lot less traffic. Until more CA transplants move here and ruin it like Denver, anyway. Hot high-tech workforce/opportunities. College town - UT in the middle of the city, the far more conservative A&M about 1.5 hours outside of town. Plus Texas Tech, Baylor, etc. A pretty bangin' cultural scene overall. They don't call it the live music capital of the world for nothing. Rapidly developing North City area which in some ways is becoming more hip than downtown. Cons Weather. Hope you like baking hot summers. On the pro side, winters are even milder - a lot milder, actually - than SFO. And Spring/Autumn can be quite pleasant. Perhaps the sharpest concentration of blue-state commie hippies and red-state extremists in the US. There is Austin, and then there is the rest of Texas, and you will have no trouble telling who is who. I actually like this part since I'm technically neither and having two extremes constantly at war at the local level is entertaining to watch but if you are super in to hanging around with only people who agree with you on Very Important Issues! then you are in for a shock. Property taxes add a lot to home ownership (and also drive rent costs) however coming from the Bay area I don't think you will find that a concern. You will probably be shocked by the kind of house you can get for half of the same price out there. You are a long way from anywhere. I mean, you can drive 3 hours to Dallas or Houston if you want....San Antonio is the closest, and probably best, large city. Otherwise you are flying. Austin's airport is actually one of my favorites and you can get direct flights to both coasts however your options compared to SFO are much more limited. Ixian fucked around with this message at 01:25 on May 8, 2017 |
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May 8, 2017 01:22
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congestion on 35 is now approaching Toronto levels is the only thing i would add to the con list
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May 8, 2017 01:57
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:congestion on 35 is now approaching Toronto levels is the only thing i would add to the con list Mopac isn't any great shakes either, though the new toll lane helps. I live north of the city, so I just pay the toll on 130 to get downtown, or past it. Which is maybe something that should also be added (toll roads). Texas loves toll roads.
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May 8, 2017 02:01
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Minneapolis will never be too crowded because many people can't handle the winters. I don't like them either but I do love how much people get outside here. In the summer the parks and walking areas are bustling as everyone tries to soak in as much summer as possible. Longtime Minnesotans are generally hardier when it comes to weather and make the most of whatever comes.
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May 8, 2017 02:17
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EAT FASTER!!!!!! posted:I would also agitate for Big 10 College towns, as I think they are some of the greatest places on Earth (especially AA, Madison, IC and U/C, less so Chicago and Minny but those cities are fun for other reasons, gently caress Nebraska). Everyone seems excited about Big Ten college towns. Which are those? Is this a reliable list? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Ten_Universities
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May 8, 2017 03:09
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oliveoil posted:Everyone seems excited about Big Ten college towns. Which are those? Is this a reliable list? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Ten_Universities https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Ten_Conference It's mostly a football conference, some are more college town than others, like nobody would call Minneapolis or Columbus 'college towns', but Ann Arbor or the Iowas would definitwly be called college towns, just depending on how much else the town has going for it.
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May 8, 2017 03:29
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Also, do not move to New Brunswick.
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May 8, 2017 14:58
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